May 2002Dreamlog |
KEY: The top entry for each day is dream. Below ----- is real life. Below ~~~~~ is Medievia. Misspellings have been retained. [] indicates notes written later. | |
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May 31 |
Following others along some sort of playground apparatus I grasp the projecting end with my legs and hang upside down. Then the thing starts to whip me around through the air, but I ride it like one of those bucking bulls, shouting "Yeehaw!" Everyone standing below is very impressed.
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May 30 |
This planet has a very repressive government, full of quality control appointees who harass even little children. Some people meet Thermeon as a travel station. To locals, imperial citizens such as he are known as "immortals" because of their lengthened life span. A tall, light brown-skinned man befriends Thermeon and travels with him. I ask Thermeon for some assistance and he obiges me. He wears cream-colored cloth.
----- I'm taking my marble collection of Elly's class. After the presentation of marbles, and the demonstration of how to tell amber from plastic by specific gravity, I went to my appointment at the bank, and after that to Scrambles, where I had a Noah's ark opus to produce, while Lisa was doing her own opus of animals in a train.
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May 29 |
I see my filly galloping, pure white. She didn't die of dehydration. She killed herself on loneliness (for a magnificent black horse from a previous dream).
Thermeon speaks to Donna, author of Spider's Web, with whom I've been exchanging reviews. "Despite what you may think from these initial efforts," he says, "Starfall and Spider's Web have a lot in common." I stand nearby, feeling proud that my character is showing off his familiarity with her work. He doesn't look like he does in my stories; he's shorter and broader. He still has long white hair, but it's wavy. |
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May 28 |
My companion and I were so hungry for this vegetable pie that we gobbled it up even after it had fallen upside down on the bench.
I was doing Thermeon's tunic and belt in a sort of purple-beige color. I wanted the belt to be fairly broad. I was planning to wear it, but I wasn't sure I could get the backing right if I made it myself. I ran out of time before work, and then I realized I wouldn't have the next day off like I used to before Donna was gone, so I decided that I would have to finish the project after work. I was in such a hurry to get home that I almost trampled a couple of kids at the school. Then I went through my computer pages looking for the one with the right color to apply, but it was dried up, or lost, or something. Seemed like I'd have to sponge the color on again. This color was so delicious, just like the pie. ----- I got home from work really wanting to lie down for a nap, but the filter wasn't working on my fishtank, so I had to do something. I took the filter off to clean it and put a bubble stone in the tank for the interim. Then I flushed part of the filter apparatus down the toilet.
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May 27 |
A moose and another creature are chasing and stomping on a small dog.
---- The kids had to forego games and work on Java programs for a class they're both taking. I started chapter 3 of the new Starfall, introducing Katora. We had our traditional Monday pizza, though we had to get it from PizzaHut as Romano's was closed.
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May 26 |
The evil wizard was secretly causing strife between the young acolytes after having disposed of their master. He put a young woman in suspended animation. Her baby, only a few days old, was crying and crying for her. I considered volunteering as a wet nurse, but decided that if I didn't get involved none of them would know the difference. One of the acolytes carried cooked chicken parts in the back pocket of his jeans.
Through another wile of the evil wizard, the acolytes are now fighting their female master, all ganging up on her. However she suddenly lets loose with a pellet spray attack that punches holes in the spell scrolls they were going to use, rendering them useless. The pellets also rip open the kid's jean pocket, disgorging chicken parts. ---- I planned to go through the Dayly Wonders to the 13th edition today, covering Kokiro's first appearance. However, first thing in the morning I was seized by a desire to work on Chapter 2 of my newest Starfall draft. So I finished that chapter. Now I'm ready to have Chinese for lunch with the kids (if they wake up--they thought they could play video games all night and all the following day without rest in order to get their schedules back into sync with school, but they both fell asleep at about 10 AM with the thought that we'd order Chinese at 2PM, about 10 minutes from now.) We had our Chinese, but I only got to number seven of the old Dayly Wonders.
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May 25 |
We find four men lying in a quadrangle. They're passed out from doing drugs. We unhook them from the drug apparatus. One of the four is Kokiro's henchman Lino. I think that Lino looks very sweet in his unconscious state.
----- I posted the 2nd through 6th editions in the Dayly Wonder back issues. After doing the Dayly Wonders I'll post earlier portions of this journal, going back to 1957. Then I'll go through my ancestors' letters and journals back to 1806.
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May 24 |
I'm Katora in this dream. Needing to escape monsters, I and a male friend set out in open-ended kayaks. My socks get wet. We go around and around in a big rectangle until another pathway finally opens to us (it's like a video game). Hungry, I prepare a bagel with butter and honey.
Wondering whether the atomic blast can be heard around the world. We're in a castle hall, hostile peasants staring in at us. I try to duck behind the couch so they can't see me. Just as the peasants are about to burst in I hear shots. Looking out the window I see Teddy Roosevelt rushing to our rescue, using fire magic. Louise is already home, though I haven't picked her up yet. I still will pick her up, but her dream-self came home ahead of time. ----- Debbie stopped by on her way to the store to borrow my key. I picked the kids up for the weekend. Debbie stopped by again on her way home to return the key. I thought the scene with Thermeon and Sagi was getting a little long-winded and dull, so I had Kahee appear and liven things up.
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May 23 |
Running about a convention hall, forgetting my shoes, and so on--images inspired by Philcon, I suppose.
----- Late in the evening I went back to the scene with Thermeon and Sagi in the garden. It felt soothing after a day involved in the store.
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May 22 |
Deborah and I both sketched characters from a cowboy movie, though in different years. The movie's title is composed of much too blocky letters.
----- I wrote a paragraph or two of a new Starfall opening before work.
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May 21 |
Members of a gang pose as streetsweepers in order to spy on likely victims. After being captured by the gang I flee by letting a strong current pull me away across the lake. In the end some members of the gang, including Rosie, become good citizens.
----- I started working on Quintillion graphics for a mindsea duel scene set on the Edge.
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May 20 |
The watchtower was surmounted by the guardian eye of an ancient soldier.
The ancient soldier appeared on stage. "I may appear delicate," he said. "But I'm still dangerous." "Watch out for the step," I called as he descended from the stage. "I see it," he growled back at me. Then he missed the next step and turned a cartwheel. Thermeon, the old warhero, was aboard a cruise ship on a river. I was him. When a little boy named Paul fell overboard, Thermeon/I knew we would have to play the hero and dive in to get him, even though the water was ice cold. Luckily I had the lifeguard training back when I was a girl scout troop leader, so I knew what to do. Then a dangerous white cobra slithered on board, and the colonel and his chums called on me to get rid of it. By this time I felt that I was being somewhat taken advantage of. I knew nothing about cobras, but when I tried to ask what to do everyone acted as if I should know, being the great hero and all. "Use the tongs," they said. "I'm supposed to cut off its head with them?" I asked. "No, just contain it," they laughed. This seemed even more unfair--I'd be standing there holding on to the cobra indefinitely. The colonel and his chums went back to their card game, and I reached out with the tongs, which were hard to use since one side was longer than the other. When I clamped them on the cobra's neck it sprayed the deck with venomous saliva. Then it disintegrated. I met a couple of famous women writers on the ship. The second of them was from South America. She had written a book about the Neanderthal monuments of South America. She gave me an autograph which included a little sketch. "You and I have a lot in common," she told me. "I wonder which of us is the better writer." "You are," I said graciously. Then I added, "Of course, I program too. That's why I'm behind you in getting my universe together." ---- Today I met the landlord, a tough old guy with a leathery face who continually puffed a cigarette. He didn't want to negotiate on the rent. I walked out and started calling around to other malls. Debbie had to tell him she was definitely leaving him with an empty space before he budged. I finally posted my new Thermeon graphics for the Great War.
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May 19 |
I went to a party with a lot of games. One of them looked really interesting. Everyone had some sort of vehicle constructed from blocks, and they were taking them around in this big yard. Each vehicle had a certain movement pattern. Its life energy was represented by tiny marbles. I wanted to play, but the woman whose party it was said I was too late; the game was already underway.
I wanted around to some of the other party rooms, and when I came back the game looked like it was just starting again, but I was told that I had again missed out. I saw Ben playing. I asked him what luck he was having. He said he was a skilled player, but the marbles gave him trouble. As I watched another young man beat him at a game with the life counters that looked just like an old-fashioned game of marbles. After the game I told the woman that I had some little marbles in my collection of different colors than her life counters, while she had some colors I didn't have, and I asked if she would trade with me. She said no. ----- Ben and Louise played MegamanX all day, and we decided to postpone shopping until next weekend. Returned to campus at 9 PM.
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May 18 |
Acting out a play where a woman continually rebuffs her fat admirer.
----- We saw Star Wars II. I expressed my disgruntlement with Thermeon to the zoo chat room and at home. Dorian suggested that he drink some Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster at the Serendip. Deborah said I'd just have to rewrite Starfall. She's very satisfied with her new Quickening and with Jusoli, the character who gave her so much trouble. I worked on the Great War graphics some more
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May 17 |
Guido sits up in a tree and the old man, in disguise, knocks him down. But I know it's the old man because he's the only one who needs glasses that protect against helium. However Guido isn't killed; he just falls into the river and swims away.
----- I drove to the county clerk in Freehold to get a certificate for my store's trade name. In the afternoon I went to pick up the kids. Ben had been delayed moving into his new room, so I helped him carry his stuff down. He was thrilled by his new quarters, which features a refrigerator, stove, and bathroom. By the time he was moved in it was rush hour, so we went to Mitsuwa to shop for treats. We ate our mochi and azuki ice cream at one of the tables there, then Louise drove us home. I scored 1250 in Kecak. Ben scored 1390. Outdoors, Louise observed a squat wild creature--she thinks it was a badger--toddling about with a large orange peel in its mouth. Engrossed by its prize, it seemed unable to see where it was going, or to smell what was about. She approached within five feet, thinking at first that it was Slayzer.
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May 16 |
Quintillion challenges Thermeon: "Do you disbelieve in yourself as much as I disbelieve in myself?"
Monster in hidden dimension at the end of the hallway comes out upon occasion to torment humans. But a little child and I put our faces through the glass (it becomes like jello for us) and see it. Now we'll know its plans. Boy meets beautiful girl in overturned caravan. |
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May 15 |
Cow heads coming through walls in and out from buildings, bringing contagion.
----- Debbie said that Rhoda told her not to let me come in today because Donna was on the warpath. However, Debbie spoke to Donna when she first came in, paid her, and told her to leave.
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May 14 |
I was up late playing Kecak (my new record is 1230), and had only vague dreams where the silver spiders of the previous night had become people at a summer camp. ----- I spoke to Debbie again about taking over the store, and decided to rename it "BonnieBug." I registered my new domain name and created a bug logo. Saw a small snapping turtle on my run, and hordes of goslings.
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May 13 |
I have a two-year-old tow-haired boy named Thermeon by one hand and a large, ugly man by the other, walking along the path of life. But I decide to revise things.
Stopping by Bruce's house unexpectedly, I decide to pick up some of the things I'd left. There is a mattress, and some blankets and pillow cases. I decide to take along the spiders that were on the stuff, but I can't quite close them all into a wooden box with a sliding lid (like the Quantum Cat's box) without crushing them. I also have to take along a guinea pig that's running around, to keep the cats from eating it. I want to stop by the vet's to drop off the guinea pig, but meanwhile the silver spiders are crawling out of the box. One bites my finger, and I exude a big silvery drop. Silver spiders are dangerous, someone says. They're rare, but perhaps they have been spreading unseen across the country. "I hate you!" a woman yells at the guinea pig, because it's carrying a silver spider in its fur. ----- Debbie told us that she would have to close the store because she's gotten too deep into debt. But she said she'd give it to me if I paid her creditors, so I checked with Corey to see if he thought it would be a good investment. He said it could be okay if I wanted to work at it. Meanwhile, Ben found out that he wasn't having a computer science final today after all, and he'd rushed back for nothing.
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May 12 |
Kahee (Quintillion's father) was an AI coded to speak in two languages, Nanderese and human. The algorithms for the two languages were very different, I explained. Kahee was missing some part of his innards.
Jingles had broken off both of his fangs. ----- Louise had been up in the middle of the night baking me a cake for Mother's Day, and a giant cookie as well. We had some of the cookie for breakfast. Ben played Starcraft and I played Breath of Fire IV while Louise napped. My high score in Kecak was 1120. Ben received some unwanted news via email about a computer science final scheduled for tomorrow, so the kids had to cut short their "vacation" and return to campus.
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May 11 |
I was on a field trip with a school group in Canada. One of the teachers punished me for some infraction by making me write descriptions of candles of various colors where the flames would represent the characters' hair. I did the "lemon" candle, the "licorice" candle, the "orange" candle, and others.
Wild turkeys landed in numbers about us with loud gobbling. After handing in the candle essays I went to photograph them. Then I and one of the girls went to check on the wise uncle to make sure he was okay after the cataclysm. He was in a small house reading from his library. He invited me inside. "Your house is the smallest in the whole development," I noted. "I'm planning to sell it and buy another," he said. "Perhaps my family would be interested in purchasing," I said. "They're in real estate... but maybe I should take a look at the property first." Embarrassed by having made an offer before seeing the lot, I ran outside. ----- The kids and I watched Spiderman. Afterwards we went shopping so that the kids, and Louise in particular, could stock up for summer session. Afterwards Louise baked lasagne from a recipe she found on the internet. Louise saw a skunk wandering across our lawn near the woods. The white stripe on its back made its movements resemble a large inchworm convulsing its way across the grass, she said.
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May 10 |
The image of a road winding three miles across the ranch hills. Along the route were placed various items which were of signifigance to the person travelling the route. I wondered whether the things would look as big from my distant perspective as they seemed to the person walking the route.
------ The dream seemed a metaphor of life and its important moments. I had a clear image of how Thermeon experienced the exercise of his mindpowers. To him it felt like sonar or echolocation. He sent out a ping, and received an impression of the thoughts in the mind of the person he pinged or of future events. But if the waters of his mind were unsettled, he wouldn't be able to sense clearly. Picked up the kids and made roast chicken dinner. I wasn't at Scrambles because we had gotten ahead in the work on Wednesday. Louise observed Slayzer's hunting acitivity again. She noted that a field mouse was able to escape him by hiding beneath a pungeant bush that masked its odor.
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May 9 |
At my grandfather's house my cat had six kittens. I was looking for homes for them. I walked to the house across the street and explained that I didn't live in the neighborhood any more, so I had to find homes for the kittens. He said he would like a male. All of the kittens seemed to be female, but finally I found a male; it was green.
I thought that was interesting, because I'd always wanted a green kitten when I was a little girl. I went on to the Serendip, trying to find homes for the other kittens. There was some talk of primitive humanoids living in jungles, perhaps those described in Tarzan books. |
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May 8 |
I'm printing out my manuscript on paper that's yellow on one side and salmon on the other. But it doesn't matter because I'll have to do a lot of revisions before it's ready to submit.
My grandfather is still hale and hearty. A series of round perforations that induce a harmonic flow, especially under water, is called Han. Louise purchases a very large silver model warehouse. I don't know where we'll put it, but I'll store my marble collection inside it. I have to phone one of the Japanese physicians to ask for Motrin for my daughter. ------- I finally chose a costume for Thermeon for the Great War game. Now I have to fix up each individual image. I plan to redo the small ones too.
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May 7 |
------- No time for dreams as I was up most of the night reading The Lady of the Sorrows. At about One-thirty AM Deborah came downstairs yelling that my cats were killing something out in the woods. I had my bubble lamp on and had heard nothing. "There's an animal screaming out there," she said. When we opened the back door everything was silent. When I was out for my run I saw goslings at the top of a pylon under the bridge. It must be over two stories up. I suppose they'll have to tumble down when it comes time for them to join their parents grazing and swimming. I've seen things like that on nature shows, so I suppose they'll survive. I fixed up my 4-dimensional tic-tac-toe game so that Thermeon wouldn't let you steal his squares.
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May 6 |
I'm running along my usual path through the park, only it's night. A man is running alongside me. He says, "This is where I turn around."
"I run farther," I tell him. Then he says something about it being night. It's indistinct; something about maybe I won't be able to get back because the park would be shut down. I see the path sort of ending in nothingness, like a video game path when it's going to the next board, so I turn around too. I decide to race the man back since my run has been shortened so much. After my first burst of speed he passes me, but I'm confident that I can pass him again on the uphill section... |
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May 5 |
I'm stuck in a big traffic jam. Following someone on foot, I go around a bunch of backed-up cars, elliciting nasty looks from the drivers. Suddenly I'm in the front of the line, and the person in the booth waves me forward. At this check point we have to surrender our license plates before crossing the bridge. I'm subjected to a lot of weird questions, such as, "Is there a mother with a Jewish name in your household?" Afterwards the woman questioning me apologizes. I say, "I'm sure that you're a very nice person in your real life; this is just a job."
After crossing I have to get my plates back, but luckily I have them memorized. Children are picked one by one and taken out of a big holding area. Larry's elf takes one of the last little girls. I know he wants her for a sex toy. I meet her eyes as they leave, but I don't look at him. The woman who helped Debbie open the store comes in, looks around, and says, "I don't need this store any more, the economy won't support it. I'll do the rest of the orders; you can leave." Debbie will be mad about her store being closed, I think. As for myself, I'll have to find a new job. ------ Louise told me about her night following Slayzer around to his haunts. He was very pleased with the strange shed that looks like a chicken coop, and purred all the while he was showing it to her. In the course of their roaming she lifted him up onto a fence, and he liked that too. She also watched him play with a field mouse for a long time. She was amazed by how high the tiny thing could hop into the air, and by how stupid it was, continually drawing the cat's attention back to itself. After a while the mouse wandered off and rested under some bushes, a tiny black lump in the night. Slayzer looked around and couldn't spot it, but he put his nose to the ground and sniffed out its trail. Finally he ate it in two bites.
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May 4 |
An evil wizard plots to assassinate the good emperor Dunderberg. Playing the role of the Emperor's daughter, I overhear something about someone being killed by pressure two days hence, but I don't understand clearly enough to give a warning. When the fatal days comes, the evil wizard causes a great upheaval of rocks and dirt in order to bury and crush the Emperor along with his entourage. But when a cherished serving maid of the Emperor stumbles in front of him, his gentle plum-colored eyes go wide with alarm, and he throws himself protectively over her body. His concern for another triggers latent magical powers unsuspected by the wizard. With his new-found powers Dunderberg creates a pocket of safety around himself and the maid, so that they're unhurt, though buried beneath the smoking rocks.
I will have to dig them out. ------- I revised Imperial history. It wasn't so hard; I think I only had to change about nine web pages. And I fixed the Great War by making Iklo the son of the Code Empress. I think his motivation for starting the war is even better now. Louise and I ran in the park together and walked around the zoo. A man was there with his son feeding the animals animal crackers. The raccoons didn't care for the crackers, but the red fox loved them, sniffing them, then crunching them up with his ears flicking back and his long fangs champing. He looked a lot like our cats with his amber eyes and fluffy tail. The coyotes didn't want the animal crackers, and the emus pecked all around them. We couldn't see what the emus were pecking at. Louise suggested that they were pecking at nothing at all. Their movements seemed almost mechanical, necks retracting like big cranes over the three-toed dinosaur-like feet. The donkeys liked the animal crackers. Louise and I walked back, then ran the last part of the way to the car, our steps in sync.
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May 3 |
Hot air balloons coming down. Trying to get underneath them by moving around the outer tiers of the complex. Inside the complex there are many rooms and hallways with lockers. I recall treats made from cicada wings.
----- After work I picked Louise up from the train station. She has no finals until Monday. Ben, unfortunately, has finals on Saturday and Sunday, so he won't be able to come home until next weekend. Louise was full of tales. She had competed in a two-mile walk race, something she'd never done before. No one coached her, she learned everything she needed to know from "racewalking.com." She also made a school record for the 400 meter dash. (I once had the record--6.6--for the 50 yard dash at Beverly Hills High School, but it was broken before I left. My record for the standing broad jump--71"--was still listed there last time I visited some thirty years ago.) Louise told me that her Prob Stat team had luckily been composed of herself and three other "reasonably motivated, reasonably intelligent" people, as opposed to lazy people or "born leaders." Because of this, the work went smoothly. Lazy people and "born leaders" slowed things down, she said. We talked about group dynamics as we walked to the local deli for a sub. Back home we turned to analyzing my "Starfall" characters according to Louise's trichotomy. She proceeded to tear the novel apart, exposing all the concerns I was wrestling with in trying to decide where to take the story next. In the aftermath, I decided that I need to undo three thousand years of imperial history and rewrite "Starfall," placing it in the beginning of Thermeon's reign. Attributing three thousand years of past history to Thermeon that don't fit his character very well was the main problem. I will start to revamp my website to reflect this change. What will this do to my "Great War" game?
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May 2 |
A football stadium had been built on the ranch.
There was some intrigue involved with the players, one quarterback in particular. Likely they were aliens from Warchild. ------ So I sent "Crossing Over" to Asimov's. I saw on Ralan that Neverworlds seems to be going under, which means that I can send "Buzz Fly" somewhere else. I thought about sending it to Peridot, since Tempest mentioned that they'd like to see submissions from workshop members. But I don't know if they'd even look at something that long, and two inquiries I sent to the chat list got bounced. Apparently I can't send messages from Hotmail. So I got so tired I just gave up. The Crit Marathon makes me tired too. I just look at one of those clearance Daily Doubles and my eyes swim in my head. But I did get some face-lifting done on the website. I have a new Quantum Cat link on my homepage, and I spiffed up the links on the Quantum Cat page itself, so that if you put the mouse over one of the boxes you see either a live cat or a dead cat... I also linked the Duel page to the Imperial Library with new Thermeon graphics. He's no longer green. But I still need to give him a costume for the scene with Iklo in the "Great War." Heard some loud gobbling from the woods today. I wonder if turkeys are noisy when they mate. I remember the peacocks sounding like meowing cats...
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May 1 |
The man who led the last successful cavalry charge of the Civil War was otherwise something of a coward and a failure.
"How many rainbow fish were in my fishtank?" I asked. It seemed to me there was an extra one. Then I noticed a line I thought was the water level. It was very low. In sticking my hand in to make certain, I sloshed the water, and now the big white fish seemed to be on the outside looking in. But when I went around the tank to find it, I saw that it was still inside; only it had become twisted and distorted. "My fish are sick," I told Deb. "You can get some TVC from my room," she told me. She was on her way out to work, and so was her boyfriend. He had a job where they were expecting him to make lots of innovative designs for the company. As we walked along we saw a small plane take off. Too small to get over the tall building, it banked, but cut it too close, and crash landed. I hoped that the pilot wasn't hurt. The plane didn't look too bad. But when I started to go down my companions told me I couldn't go there. I wondered why. Was the drop steeper than it looked? A bicyclist reached the plane. The pilot stepped out. He was a young man with a big ponytail that looked like a sword blade. He wore an orange Tee with a Wizard-of-Oz character. The bicyclist wore a green Tee with another character, and a third person who had rushed to the plane had on a blue Tee with a character. "Talk about design," said the pilot. Jesus was sitting on our couch, looking like Hercules from the series. "The government's eating me alive," he complained. I made sympathetic noises, thinking that he was headed for a lot worse. "Come have some crackers with me," he said. "I haven't got time," Deb said. "There's always time for crackers with Jesus," I said, seating myself beside him and accepting what looked like a graham cracker. ------ I'm sure these dreams, except for the part about the fish, were inspired by discussions on the OWW-SFF ML. After work I met with Elaine and we walked around Manasquan Resevoir. Didn't see much wildlife, except for a cute chipmunk that popped its head out from the middle of the bike trail. We heard a red-bellied woodpecker but didn't see it. I wrote a poem, "Crossing Over," while I waited for Elaine. I want to post it on my website, but maybe I'll submit it to Asimov's first.
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